knit scarves.
Renata pushed the door open, and we walked into a wall of heat. Men and women sat on the cushions, arms, and back of a single couch; school-age boys and girls lay on their stomachs on the shag carpet, toddlers crawling over their skinny legs. I stepped in and took off my jacket and sweater, but the path to the coat closet, where Renata greeted someone about my age, was completely blocked by small body parts.
As I stood by the door, an older, softer version of Renata pushed her way through the crowd. She carried a large wooden tray with sliced oranges, nuts, figs, and dates.
“Victoria!” she exclaimed when she saw me. She handed the tray to Natalya, who was lounged on the couch, and climbed over the children blocking her way to where I stood. When she hugged me, my face pressed into her armpit and the flared sleeves of her gray wool sweater wrapped around my back like living things. She was a tall woman, and strong—and when I finally wriggled away, she grasped my shoulders and tilted my face up to look at her. “Sweet Victoria,” she said, her long, wavy white hair spilling forward and tickling my cheeks. “My daughters have told me so much about you—I loved you even before I met you.”
She smelled of primrose and apple cider. I peeled myself away. “Thank you for inviting me to your party, Mrs.—” I stopped, realizing Renata had never told me her name.
“Marta Rubina,” she said. “But I only answer to Mother Ruby.” She reached forward as if to shake hands, then laughed and hugged me again. We were wedged into the corner, and only the thick plaster walls behind my back kept me standing. She pulled me forward, her arm around my shoulders, and led me around the room. The children scattered out of the way, and Renata, perched on a folding chair in the corner, watched with an amused smile.
Mother Ruby guided me into the kitchen, where she sat me at a table with two heaping plates of food. The first held a large baked fish, whole, with spices and some kind of root vegetables. The second held beans, peas, and potatoes with parsley. She handed me a fork and a spoon, and a bowl of mushroom soup. “We ate hours ago,” she said, “but I saved you food. Renata told me you’d be hungry—which pleased me greatly. I love nothing more than feeding family.”
Mother Ruby sat down across from me. She boned my fish, poked her finger in my peas, and reheated them after exclaiming over the temperature. She introduced me to everyone who walked by: daughters, sons-in-law, grandchildren, boyfriends and girlfriends of various family members.
I looked up and nodded but did not put down my fork.* * *
I fell asleep at Mother Ruby’s. I hadn’t meant to. After dinner, I escaped into an empty guest room, and between the heavy food and the previous night’s insomnia, I was unconscious almost before I lay down.
The smell of coffee pulled me out of bed the next morning. Stretching, I wandered down the hall until I found the bathroom. The door was open. Inside, Mother Ruby was in the shower behind a clear plastic curtain. When I saw her, I spun around and ran back down the hall.
“Come in!” she called after me. “There’s only one bathroom. Don’t pay any attention to me!”
I found Renata in the kitchen, pouring coffee. She handed me a mug.
“Your mother’s in the shower,” I said.
“With the door open, I’m sure,” she said, yawning.
I nodded.
“Sorry about that.”
I poured a cup of coffee and leaned against the kitchen sink.
“My mother was a midwife in Russia,” Renata said. “So she’s used to seeing women naked just moments after meeting them. America in the seventies worked for her just fine, and I don’t think she’s noticed that times have changed.”
Mother Ruby came into the kitchen then, tied up in a bright coral terry-cloth robe. “What’s changed?” she asked.
Renata shook her head. “Nudity.”
“I don’t think nudity’s changed since the birth of the first human,” Mother Ruby said. “Only society has changed.”
Renata rolled her eyes and turned to me. “My mother and I have been having this argument since I was old enough to talk. When I was ten, I told her I wouldn’t have kids because I never wanted to be naked in front of her again. And look at me—fifty and childless.”
Mother Ruby broke an egg into a pan, and it crackled. “I delivered all twelve of my grandchildren,” she told me with pride.
“You’re still a midwife?”
“Not legally,” she said. “But I still get two a.m. calls from all over this city. And I go every time.” She handed me a plate of eggs over easy.
“Thank you,” I said. I ate them and then walked down the hall to the bathroom, locking the door behind me.* * *
“A little more warning next time,” I told Renata as we drove to Bloom later that morning. We had a full week of weddings ahead of us, and we were both rested and well fed.
“If I had warned you,” Renata said, “you wouldn’t have come. And you needed a little rest and nutrition. Don’t try to tell me you didn’t.”
I didn’t argue.
“My mother’s a bit of a legend in the midwifery circle. She’s seen everything, and her outcomes are far better than the outcomes of modern medicine, even when they shouldn’t be. She’ll likely grow on you; she does on most people.”
“Most people,” I guessed, “but not you?”
“I respect my mother,” Renata said, pausing. “We’re just different. Everyone assumes there’s some kind of biological consistency between mothers and their children, but that’s not always the case. You don’t know my other sisters, but look at Natalya, my mother, and me.” She was right; the three couldn’t have been more different.
All day, as I organized orders and made lists of flowers and quantities for upcoming weddings, I thought about Grant’s mother. I remembered the pale hand reaching out of the darkness the afternoon Elizabeth and I visited. What had it been like to be Grant as a child? Alone except for the flowers, his mother slipping from the past to the present as she walked from room to room. I would ask Grant, I decided, if he would talk to me again.
But he wasn’t at the flower market that week, or the week after. His stall stood empty, the white plywood peeling and abandoned-looking. I wondered if he would come back, or if the thought of seeing me again was enough to keep him away permanently.
Consumed by thoughts of Grant’s absence, the quality of my work suffered. Renata began sitting beside me at the worktable, and instead of our usual silence, she told me long, humorous stories about her mother, her sisters, her nieces and nephews. I only half listened, but the constant narration was enough to keep me focused on the flowers.
The new year came and went, a flurry of white weddings and silver-bell-trimmed bouquets. Grant still had not returned to the flower market. Renata gave me the week off, and I holed up inside the blue room, coming out only to eat and to use the bathroom. Every time I emerged through my half-door, I came face-to-face with the orange photo box, and I was flooded with a vague sense of loss.
Renata had not requested my help until the following Sunday, but on Saturday afternoon there was a knock on my door. I poked my head out and saw Natalya, still in her pajamas, clearly annoyed.
“Renata called,” she said. “She needs you. She said to take a shower and come as fast as you can.”
I took my time in the shower, soaping and shampooing and brushing my teeth with mouthfuls of water as hot as I could stand it. When I dried myself with a towel, my skin was red and splotchy. I put on my nicest outfit: black suit pants and a soft white blouse, the material sewn in tucks like an old-fashioned tuxedo shirt. Before leaving the bathroom, I trimmed my hair with precision and blow-dried the snips of hair off my shirt.
As I neared Bloom I saw a familiar figure sitting on the deserted curb, an open cardboard box in his lap. Grant. So that was why Renata had called. I stopped walking and took in his profile, serious and watchful. He turned in my direction and stood up.
We walked toward each other, our short steps matched, until we met in the middle of the steep hill, Grant
